Mars Bar
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The Mars Bar or Mars is a chocolate bar manufactured by Mars Incorporated. It is made of chocolate-malt nougat topped with a layer of caramel and covered with milk chocolate.
The Mars Bar formerly sold in the USA (renamed "Snickers Almond") was slightly different from the Mars Bar still sold in other countries, which does not contain almonds. It has been sold elsewhere as "Mars Almond".
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[edit] History and information
There are (or were) two slightly different products known as the Mars Bar. Both contained nougat topped with caramel and covered with milk chocolate. However, the product formerly sold as Mars in the USA contained almonds in the nougat, whereas the Mars still sold elsewhere does not. The Mars Bar outside the USA is very similar to the Milky Way sold within the United States.
For more specific details, see International Variants below.
[edit] Mars within the USA
The Mars Bar was introduced in the United States in 1936. It contained nougat and almonds topped with caramel and covered with milk chocolate. It remained on the market until 2000 when it was renamed the Snickers Almond bar.
[edit] Mars elsewhere
The US Milky Way, upon which the non-US Mars Bar is based, was invented by Frank Mars in 1920. <ref>The Mars Story at mars.com, accessed July 23, 2006.</ref>
[edit] Peanut-free
From Summer 2006, all Mars Bars produced in Canada are peanut-free. Mars is one of the few chocolate bars in North America for which no size of the product has any trace of peanuts.
[edit] Australian recall
In July 2005, Mars Bars, along with the Snickers bar, were recalled due to an anonymous extortion attempt against Star City Casino in Sydney. The extortionist claimed to have poisoned seven Mars and Snickers bars at random in New South Wales. As a result Masterfoods Corporation, the company that manufactures Mars Bars in Australia, recalled the entire Mars and Snickers product from store shelves in New South Wales. Nineteen people were possibly affected, with two being admitted to hospital. In the later half of August 2005 the threat to the public was deemed negligible and the bars returned to shelves and was accompanied by a state-wide advertising campaign incorporating the slogan "Feels good to be back".
[edit] Deep-fried Mars Bar
This is a British Mars bar which has been coated with batter and deep-fried in oil or beef fat. It is a Scottish invention (first reports of battered Mars bars being sold date back to 1995<ref>Original source, Scottish Daily Record via:- "Deep-fried Mars myth is dispelled", BBC News online. BBC article dated 2004-12-17, retrieved 2006-11-15.</ref>) and is available from a few fish-and-chip shops in Scotland and the North of England. They are also available across Australia from small fish and chip shops.
[edit] Reformulation of UK bar
In 2002, the UK Mars Bar was reformulated and repackaged.<ref>Guardian Unlimited, "Mars bar", 18 March 2002, accessed July 23, 2006.</ref> The nougat was made lighter, the chocolate on top became noticeably thinner, and the overall weight of the bar was reduced slightly. This brought it closer in style to the European Milky Way and the North American 3 Musketeers bars. The packaging was also redesigned with a less-bold and more cursive logo. The famous slogan "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" was also replaced with "Pleasure you can't measure". <ref>Everything2 "Mars bar" article by Arieh, accessed July 23, 2006.</ref>
The reasoning behind this was to increase its "treat" appeal to the female market; previously, Mars had been associated with a somewhat masculine and sporty image.
[edit] Limited editions
In the UK and some areas of Europe, limited edition Mars Bars have occasionally gone on sale. One of these has been the Mars Midnight, which has the same filling as a normal Mars Bar but is covered in dark chocolate. Several of these limited lines were normally available products in the Australian market. In Canada (Mars Dark) and the USA (Milky Way Midnight), it has been added to the product line on a permanent basis. Some of the Limited Edition Mars Bars have been:
- Mars Almond
- Mars Dark and Light
- Mars Midnight Ice Cream
- Mars Midnight
- Mars Mini Eggs (Available around easter)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Mars Bar
- Mars Triple Chocolate (Australia)
- Mars Lava (Australia)
- Mars Minitures (5 fun size bars in the same packet)
[edit] Spinoff products
Other products have also been released using the Mars branding.
- Mars Delight
- Mars Drink
- Mars Ice Cream
[edit] Custom packaging
- Original Mars in "Believe" packaging
- Sold in the UK from April 18, 2006 until the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in July. "Believe" took prominence on the packaging ("Original Mars" appeared in smaller print) to indicate support for the England national football team. Advertising in other nations of the UK was tailored to reflect their own teams.
[edit] International variants
The Mars Bar has many variants which contain different ingredients in different countries.
| Ingredients | ||||
| Nougat | Nougat and caramel | Nougat, caramel and almonds | Nougat, caramel and peanuts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | Milky Way | Mars | (formerly Snickers Almond) | Snickers |
| Canada | 3 Musketeers | Mars | Snickers Almond - (formerly Mars with Almond) | Snickers |
| Europe | Milky Way | Mars | Snickers Almond | Snickers (formerly Marathon) |
| USA | 3 Musketeers | Milky Way | Snickers Almond - (formerly Mars) | Snickers |
[edit] Advertising slogans
[edit] Former
- "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" - United Kingdom, Australia (pre-2002, compare with current Canadian slogan)
- "Feels good to be back! " - Australia (2005)
[edit] Current
- "Recharge on Mars" - Canada
- "Another way to make your day" - UK
- "Out of this world!" - Australia, UK, Europe
- "MARS® LEGEND™" - Australia
- "Earth - what you'd eat if you lived on mars" - New Zealand and Australia
[edit] Trivia
- Rock group The Undertones released a song called "Mars Bars", which has several references to the product. The then-current UK (and US) advertising slogan "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" is incorporated into the song's lyrics.
- When an advertising agency coined the above phrase, one of its employees was Murray Walker, later famous as a motor racing commentator. The phrase is often erroneously attributed to him, although in reality it was merely his decision to use it.
- Jamie Farr of the television show M*A*S*H endorsed the US Mars bar in commercials during the 1980s.
- During Operation Red Dawn (December 2003), in which the U.S. military captured former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, they apparently found a stash of Mars Bars near the former president.
- Legend says that when London police raided a Rolling Stones party in the 1960s, they found lead singer Mick Jagger eating a Mars Bar from between girlfriend Marianne Faithfull's legs. Faithfull has repeatedly denied that it ever happened.
- In the book Total Recall, Hauser's briefcase was full of Mars Bars. He fed them to rats to mislead the villains.
- The terrorists in Die Hard (1988) are shown throughout the movie eating Mars Bars and drinking Coca-Cola, perhaps a sign of product placement.
- On a rural road in Maine in 1999, horror writer Stephen King was struck and seriously injured by a van whose driver told investigators that he had been on his way to get "some of those Marses Bars they have up to the store." King later wrote that on hearing this, it occurred to him that he had "nearly been killed by a character out of one of my own novels."
- The current Mars Bar advert in the UK features the song Blue Monday by New Order.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ In turn (and somewhat confusingly), a different bar is sold in Europe under the name "Milky Way". This closely resembles the 3 Musketeers bar sold in North America.
[edit] References
<references />
| Confectionery products of Mars, Incorporated |
|---|
| 3 Musketeers • Balisto/Tracker • Bounty • Celebrations • Dove/Galaxy bar • Kudos • Lockets • Maltesers • Mars Bar • M-Azing • M&M's • Milky Way • Revels • Snickers • Skittles • Starburst • Topic • Twix Discontinued: Marathon • Opal Mints • Spangles |
de:Mars (Schokoriegel) fr:Mars (barre chocolat) ka:მარსი (შოკოლადი) nl:Mars (reep) pl:Mars (baton) sv:Japp
